Will Insurance Costs Derail the EV Revolution?

Are they still stupidly fighting this fire? They should tow it to a deeper location and let it go. It will make a nice artificial reef for the fishes. And for the "immeasureable ecological disaster", the ecologists who say this stuff are never able to quantify what comes out of their imagination.

People are clamoring for their EVs. That's why the feds give tax credits as incentives to buy one: The tax payers help you buy that expensive Ronson lighter.

As an incentive - - the leftists will not only use other people's money to subsidize these glorified golf carts - - they will also toss in a large bag of marshmallows - - so that you can enjoy an outdoor roast - - when the thing bursts into flames.

No problem there. We will just find a few woke insurance companies that are willing to take huge losses in order to "save the Earth".

The damned things are very dangerous. Lithium batteries are BANNED on aircraft as cargo because several aircraft have had catastrophic fires on board due to lithium batteries as cargo. There has been pressure to prevent laptop computers from being permitted on board aircraft because of the lithium batteries, and currently any spare batteries for laptops or similar devices are not permitted in carryon luggage. In any case, it is a big "hint" when EV makers warn owners to never park them in an attached garage due to the risk of a home fire. Lithium batteries are essentially impossible to extinguish once they start to burn. The only thing that "works", is cooling them with immense amounts of water. This doesn't extinguish them, but can prevent the fire from spreading to other things until the batteries finally burn out. The problem is statistical, a battery is like a lottery ticket. Suppose that 1 battery in 50,000 is going to eventually just catch fire. If you have a laptop with with a battery pack made up of three 18650 batteries what are your odds of a fire? 3 "lottery tickets" out of 50,000. It happens, but not often. But what if you have a Tesla with something like 7,000 of the exact same 18650 batteries in the battery pack? Well, you have purchased 7,000 "lottery tickets" out of 50,000 - your odds have gone way up. Also, if the battery pack in your laptop catches fire, it is likely to spread to each of the three cells in the laptop pack, then it will go out. It may have set other things on fire before it goes out. If your EV with 7,000 batteries has one individual 18650 battery catch fire, it will cause the adjacent batteries to rupture and burn, generally until all 7,000 of them in the battery pack have burned. So, how big a fire depends on how many individual 18650 batteries you have in your battery pack.

As automakers continue to lose money on EVs... The automakers aren't losing money. The taxpayers are.

EVs: These technological wonders have a few issues: The cars can't be "repaired". The current batteries can be deadly. We have an electric grid that probably will not support the widespread use of this type of vehicle. I believe I just heard Tesla has been caught "fudging" the range the cars have on a charge. There is evidence, and little doubt, that extreme temperatures - hot and cold, hamper the performance of the batteries. The list of problems is growing by the day. This type of vehicle is about as environmentally friendly or "green" as an asphalt parking lot. But, hey, I guess that's the price we have to pay for "progress". Right...?

How would you like to live in a high-rise apartment and have these battery powered cars below you near the elevator and stairs?

Re #8, lithium battery powered electric bikes have been the source of several deadly apartment fires. If these e-bikes are left on the street, they are stolen or vandalized. If they are brought into the foyer of the apartment....they burn the building down, starting with the exit, so it is difficult to escape.

Can’t the DoJ just arrest the insurance execs until prices come down ? You don’t think overcharging The People is a crime? If not, what about conspiracy to destroy the planet? Maybe that’s the essence of communism socialism marxism: create a bogus victim - “Everybody” or “The Planet” - and eviscerate your enemies to protect “Everybody” and “The Planet.” What a racket.

A recent study found, “entry and midlevel cars and SUVs cost more to charge at home and in public than they do to fuel at a gas station.” My two cents —- the loss of gas tax revenue will result in new taxes at charging stations and more toll roads. And remember what Obama said, electricity prices must necessarily skyrocket.”

500 EVs in one place....enough "lottery tickets" to almost ensure a "winner", which burns down a ship worth tens of millions filled with cars worth at least $100 million more. So hauling 500 EVs cost the ensurers $20 million (guess) for the ship, and $100-$200 million for the cars destroyed. Pretty substantial payout. So, maybe the shipping insurance on an EV should be $10K per each.....Oh, wait...that would only raise $5 million, against a couple of hundred million payout. These have been reported to be expensive and rare cars, and 3,200 of them. If you figure only $40K each, certainly very low, the worth is $128 million, and if the value was just $50K per car, that would be $160 million, also likely low. Some of these are supercars and are extremely valuable, . Even a relatively ordinary Porsche or Mercedes can be easily be north of $100K these days. Ferraris and Lambos.... could be $300K or higher each. We won't likely ever know, but it could be that $300 million or more in cars plus a ship burned up due to 500 EVs on board.

Insurance costs, material shortages, fires, poor performance, political change, and more will derail EVs.

Every night when I plug my EV in I wonder if this will be the night it will burn my house down. I keep a tow chain by the garage door in case I have to pull out of my garage with another car in the event it catches on fire. I also worry that I will be able to extract my grandchildren from their car seats in case of a battery fire. These things are the equivalent of dry fuel rockets.

Then, obviously, we will create a government car insurance agency to provide affordable insurance.

#5 makes good point. Because most of us eschew EVs doesn't mean we're fire-free. Park somewhat near an EV or multiple EVs, you're not safe. A fire could be started by a burning trash can, but nearby lithium powered car(s) make it uncontrollable. Imagine an underground garage with one exit. Low probability but catastrophic when it happens.

#5 - Re Li batteries in carry-on luggage. I was at the airport in Orlando a few years back when one started smoking on the conveyor to the scanner. Fearing the worst, everyone immediately ran - in every direction. Out of the terminal, through the security perimeter, onto the tarmac, down the jetways... Even planes on the taxiway had to be recalled and debarked before the reset was complete, many hours later. Spent 2 additional days there because of it.

Hazymac, Thank you for posting this. Between the article and our illustrious, informed, and learned LDotters, I learned a lot.

The correct number of 18650 batteries in a Tesla battery pack is 7104. An 18650 battery looks like this.... the one on the left -- https://blog.solidsignal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BatteryComparison1.jpg A typical laptop battery has three of these, and the Tesla cars have 7104 of them, arranged like this.... https://images.news18.com/ibnlive/uploads/2018/04/tesla_batteries.e853a092933.original.jpg The little round things are the tops of 7104 batteries. That is the full width of the car, and the cutouts at the corners are where the wheel wells are. The entire bottom six or eight inches of the vehicle is the battery pack. Closer to the camera....a double thick stack of them

I have been retired from the insurance business some 12 years now but still get newsletters and emails from some the companies we represented at the time. One that came the other day said that EV personal auto coverage was about 26% higher than on a comparable ICE car. My guess is that all the attendant costs to owning an EV will continue to surge...fast chargers for your residence that are not all that fast, the price of electricity and the enormous cost of a replacement battery. Unless the technology has some huge breakthrough, EVs will remain a niche market. Until, that is, the feds step in with more subsidies that will completely bankrupt this country.

The "Greenies" will ignore this and the devastation to the environment in disposing of used lithium batteries is never mentioned. Never mind the child slave labor in mining lithium. But, they do yap about Climate Change which has been going on since recorded time. Greenland was once green. That means it was warm when the Viking discovered it.

It won’t be insurance costs that derails EVs. It will be sheer idiocy. The idea that you can just flood the market with EV and demand people buy them without the charging infrastructure, without the safety precautions, without design integrity is just inane. You cannot demand people buy your product if your product totally sucks. Ditto Obamacare.

I bought myself a new top of the line Honda walk-behind lawn mower a month ago. The salespeople tried to sell me on a variety of electric, battery-operated lawn mowers. That's when they informed me that, after September of this year (next month), a federal law goes into effect mandating that all lawn mowers sold in the USA have to be battery-operated. The batteries cost around $100 each, and you need two of them on a higher-powered mower. They also need replacement periodically, about every 18 months, depending on frequency of use and re-charging. Home Depot stores the batteries for the lawn mowers under lock and key because so many electric mower boxes have been opened and the batteries removed by shoplifters. I'm old enough that this new mower will be my last. I'm glad I was able to buy it before all manufacturing of ICE lawn mowers in the USA is converted to manufacturing of battery-operated mowers.

Prior to making an EV purchase, make a list of associated expenses. 1) Sticker price of car. 2) Insurance. 3) Installation of charging station at home/work. 4) Towing charges when you cannot find a charging station. 5) Replacement cost of batteries when required, including the cost of recycling the batteries. 6) Resale value of car with batteries whose shelf life is near the end.